First report / Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution.

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution
Date:
[1971]
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: First report / Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    were incurred by the same body which was responsible for the pollution. Simi- larly, the fact that airline operators do not have to pay to soundproof the homes of people who live near airports, is merely the result of particular legal and institutional arrangements and does not mean that the costs to society of the necessary soundproofing are any greater. Alternative legal or institutional arrangements could, in principle, be made to ensure that the costs of pollution caused by noise did enter into the calculations of the polluters like any other production costs. These costs would then play their full part in determining how far society should go in reducing pollution, and would no doubt lead to less pollution, other things being equal. But the costs to society of any given reduc- tion in pollution would not necessarily be affected. 18. Thus, the problem which has often to be faced is not how to stop pollution altogether, but how far it should be reduced. One implication of paragraph 16 is that some productive activities have been pushed too far, not that they should cease altogether. To abolish all such activities, and hence deprive society entirely of their benefits in order to eliminate one particular form of social cost, would be a Clear case of throwing the baby away with the bath water. Another implication of paragraph 16 is that inadequate attention and resources are likely to be devoted to reducing pollution per unit of output, not that there is no limit to the amount of resources which should be devoted to this end. The more we spend on abating pollution the less we have available for other desirable expendi- tures. 19. The social benefits of cleaner air and water, less noise and a more pleasant landscape, have to be put into perspective with other claims on resources, such as housing, health and education, or private consumption and investment. Nobody would suggest that the allocation of resources amongst these uses should be based on an “all-or-nothing’” approach. For example, it would hardly be suggested that health has some absolute priority over all other social needs. Ideally we might all like to have pure water and complete freedom from noise and dirty air; but in practice we might tolerate some shortcomings in the environment in the interests of having, say, better schools, or better health or cultural facilities than we now enjoy. So long as resources are limited, choices have to be made between alternative ways of using them. There is no social merit in making exaggerated claims for one particular form of expenditure to the detriment of others which, to many people, may be more important. The criteria for choice 20. The basic criterion for deciding how much to spend on abating pollution can be stated as follows. First, pollution should be reduced to the point where the costs of doing so are covered by the benefits from the reduction in pollution. This criterion is easy to state in these general terms but its application raises immense difficulties which are discussed in paragraphs 23-24. 21. Secondly, the choice that has to be made is not only between pollution in the aggregate and all other uses of resources; it is also between various kinds of pollution. And in making this choice one must not embark indiscriminately on some hastily devised crash programme to deal with emergencies, though specific local crises do occur from time to time as with the ““Torrey Canyon”